The Shockwave Rider (26 page)

There was a rattle of applause, and the audience sat up and looked eager. Someone patted him on the shoulder as he passed and wished him luck.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

“A classic instance of the death wish.”

“Garbage. I had no least intention of being dead. I’d watched that fat slob. I knew I could dismantle him even though I was weak and excessively angry. Didn’t I prove it? He was seven days in the hospital, you know, and he’ll never walk straight again.”

“Agreed. But on the other hand making yourself conspicuous before a three-vee audience … ?”

“Yes. Yes, there was that.”

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESS-UP

Traditionally one had defaced or scrawled on posters and billboards, or sometimes—mainly in rural areas—shot at them because the eyes or nipples of a model formed convenient targets.

Later, when a common gadget around the house was a set of transparent screens (like those later used for the electronic version of fencing) to place over the TV set for mock-tennis and similar games, strangely enough the viewers’ ratings for commercials went up. Instead of changing channels when advertising began, people took to switching in search of more of the same.

To the content of which they were paying no attention. What they wanted was to memorize the next movement of the actors and actresses and deform their gestures in hilarious fashion with a magnetic pencil. One had to know the timing of the commercials pretty well to become good at the game; some of the images lasted only half a second.

With horror the advertisers and network officials discovered that in nine cases out of ten the most dedicated watchers could not recall what product was being promoted. For them, it wasn’t “that Coke ad” or “that plug for Drãno”—it was “the one where you can make her swipe him in the chops.”

Saturation point, and the inception of diminishing returns, was generally dated to the early eighties, when the urban citizen of North America was for the first time hit with an average of over a thousand advertisements
per diem.

They went right on advertising things, of course. It had become a habit.

SWORD, MASK AND NET

Chuckling, Shad Fluckner laid aside his magnetic pencil. The commercial break was over and the circus program was due to resume. Employees of Anti-Trauma Inc. were more than just encouraged, they were virtually compelled, to watch the broadcasts from Circus Bocconi in Quemadura. Sponsoring circus was one of the best ways the corporation had found to attract new clients. Precisely those parents who spent most time indulging violence on the vicarious level were those most afraid of what would happen if their children’s aggression were to be turned on them. In fact, the more circus the parents watched, the sooner they were inclined to sign the kids up for a course of treatment. The relationship could be shown to be linear plus or minus fourteen percent.

It was no sweat for him. He’d always enjoyed circus anyhow. But if they knew, at Anti-Trauma HQ, what one of their employees had figured out to do to their latest commercial, feathers would well and truly fly. Ho-ho! It was a shame he couldn’t share his discovery with anyone; his colleagues would interpret it as disloyal except for those who’d decided it was time to move to another job, and … Well, he had the same idea in mind himself, and might reach the decision before the lifetime of the commercial expired. Meanwhile it was great fun to fool with.

Still grinning, he composed himself to watch the final segment of the show, the bit where Al Jackson allegedly issued an open challenge to members of the audience. Rigged for sure, this deal, but occasionally …

Hey.

Not so heavily rigged, this one. Not unless they decided to surple Al and—Goddamn, he’s screaming! He really is screaming! This is great stuff for once. This is really very sick indeed. This is muchissimo. Hmm … yes!

Eyes bulbing, he leaned closer to the screen. No fake, that blood. Nor the howls of agony, either! Say, who could this poker be who was making mincemeat of Bocconi’s star turn—?

“But it’s Lazarus,” he said suddenly to the air. “Beard or no beard, I’d know that shivver anywhere. And he gave me the slip before and this time—oh,
this
time … !”

NEXT IN LINE

“And once he was recognized on three-vee it was only a matter of time,” Hartz said, leaning back behind his desk. It was captioned
Deputy Director.
Thumbing one of many switches, he shut off the rolling replay of the Haflinger tapes.

“Yes, sir,” Freeman said. “And the FBI was very quick to corner him.”

“Quicker than you to drain him,” Hartz said, and gave a sleepy smile. In the context of this office, his home base, he was a different person from the visitor who had called on Freeman at Tarnover. Perhaps that was why he had declined an invitation to return.

“I beg your pardon,” Freeman said stiffly. “My brief was to extract all possible data from him. That couldn’t be done quickly. Nonetheless, to within a margin of about half a percent, I’ve achieved it.”

“That may be good enough for you. It’s not enough for us.”

“What?”

“I believe I made myself clear. After your long-drawn-out interrogation of this subject we still do not know what we most want to know.”

“That being … ?” Freeman’s voice grew frostier by the moment.

“The answer, I submit, is self-evident. An intolerable situation exists concerning Precipice vis-à-vis the government. A small dissident group has succeeded in establishing a posture of deterrence in principle no different from that adopted by a crazy terrorist threatening to throw the switch on a nuke. We were ready to eliminate this anomaly. Only Haflinger—Locke—Lazarus—whatever he was calling himself at the time—intervened and sent us back to square one. You have spent weeks interrogating him. In all the mounds of data you’ve accumulated, in all the kilometers of tape you’ve totaled, there is no slightest clue to what we want to know.”

“How to deevee the phage he wrote to protect Hearing Aid?”

“Ah, brilliant! You worked it out!” Hartz’s tone was laden with excess irony. “It is, as I said, intolerable that one small community should interfere with the government’s right to monitor subversion, disaffection and treason. We have to know how to discontinue that tapeworm!”

“You’re crying for the moon,” Freeman said after a pause. “Haflinger doesn’t know how to do that himself. I’d stake my reputation on it.”

“And that’s your final word?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Hmm. Regrettable!” Hartz tipped his chair back as far as it would go, twisted it through a few degrees, gazed with concentration into the far corner of the room. “Well, what about the other contacts he had? What about Kate Lilleberg, for instance? What have you found out about her recent actions?”

“She would appear to have reverted to her former plans,” Freeman sighed. “She’s back in KC, she’s filed no application to move her pet mountain lion, and in fact I can think of only one positive decision she has made since her return.”

“That being, I gather, to alter one of her majors for the coming academic year. She now plans to take data processing, doesn’t she?”

“Ah … Yes, I believe she does.”

“A strange coincidence. A very weird coincidence indeed. Don’t you think?”

“A connection is possible—in fact it’s likely. Calling it coincidence … no.”

“Good. I’m glad that for once you and I agree on something.” Hartz returned his chair to the upright position and leaned intently toward Freeman. “Tell me, then: have you formed any opinion concerning the Lilleberg girl? I appreciate you never met her. But you’ve met people intimately involved with her, such as her mother, her lover and sundry friends.”

“Apparently a person with considerable common sense,” Freeman said after a pause for reflection. “I can’t deny that I’m impressed with what she did to help Haflinger. It’s no small achievement to elude …”

His words faded as though he had suddenly begun to hear, what he was saying ahead of time.

“Go on,” Hartz purred.

“I was going to add: such an intensive hunt as has been kept up over six years now. Since Haflinger absconded, I mean. She seemed to—well, to grasp the scale of it at once.”

“And didn’t disbelieve what he told her, either. Did she?”

“She didn’t behave as though she did. No.”

“Hmm … Well, I’m pleased to inform you that you’ll have adequate opportunity to confirm or deevee your opinion.” Hartz hit another switch; the wall screen in the office lit, showing a vastly enlarged face.

“Computer evaluation here at BDP suggests that your no doubt sophisticated techniques might benefit from reinforcement by—what to call it?—an alternative approach, let’s say, which may strike you as old-fashioned yet which has something to be said in its favor. Because we intend to destroy that tapeworm Haflinger gave to Hearing Aid!” With a sudden glare. “And before the end of this year, what’s more! I have the president’s personal instructions to that effect.”

Freeman’s mouth worked. No sound emerged. He was gazing at the screen.

“Despite any impression I may have given to the contrary,” Hartz continued, “we here in Washington are most cognizant of your skill, patience and thoroughness. Certainly we don’t know anyone who could have done a better job. That’s exactly why we’re sending you a new subject.”

“But …” Freeman raised a shaky finger to point. “But that’s Kate Lilleberg!”

“Yes indeed. That is Kate Lilleberg. And we expect her presence at Tarnover to afford the extra leverage you need in order to pry the last most precious secret out of Nickie Haflinger. Now you must excuse me. I can’t spare you any more of my time. Good afternoon.”

BOOK 3

SPLICING THE BRAIN RACEMAN PROPOSES

“Now the way
I
see it—”

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT

This is a basic place, a farm. Listen to it.

Land. House. Barn. Sun. Rain. Snow. Field. Fence. Pond. Corn. Wheat. Hay. Plow. Sow. Reap. Horse. Pig. Cow.

This is an abstract place, a concert hall. Listen to it.

Conductor. Orchestra. Audience. Overture. Concerto. Symphony. Podium. Harmony. Instrument. Oratorio. Variations. Arrangement. Violin. Clarinet. Piccolo. Tympani. Pianoforte. Auditorium.

But consider also:

Harp. Horn. Drum. Song. Pipe.

And similarly:

Alfalfa. Rutabaga. Fertilizer. Combine harvester.

Assign the following (no credit) to one or other of the categories implied by the foregoing parameters:*

Bit. Record. Memory. Switch. Program. Transistor. Tape. Data. Electricity. On-line. Down-time. Printout. Read. Process. Cybernetics.

A CASE OF ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

For the first time since the arrival on her threshold of the—late?—Sandy Locke, Kate’s annunciator sounded when she wasn’t expecting anybody.

* Do not on any account give the same answer tomorrow as you give today.

These days, you simply did
not
go call on somebody without advance warning. It wasn’t worth it. For one thing, people were spending less time in their homes, statistics said, than ever before in history—despite the arrival of the world in full color and mock solidity thanks to three-vee in the corner of the living room. And for another, perhaps more important, calling without notice was liable to get you webbed in a net of unbreakable plastic, possibly even gassed, at any home above the poverty level.

So you used the veephone first.

In the middle of her largest room, whose walls she was redecorating with enormous photo-enlargements of microscopic circuit elements—eventually, touched in with metallic paint, they would be quite an efficient private computer—Kate stopped dead and pondered.

Well, no harm in looking at whoever it is.

Sighing, she switched on the camera and found herself staring at a man she didn’t know: young, fair, untidy, in casual clothes.

“You’re Kate!” he said brightly.

“And you are—?”

“Name of Sid. Sid Fessier. Been spending summer vac in the paid-avoidance zones. Ran into a poker name of Sandy, said to greet you when I bounced off KC, and when it turned out I’d picked a hotel just one block distant … Guess I should have called ahead, but hell—one block on a fine day like today!”

“Well, great. Come on up.”

He whistled as he climbed the stairs: a reel or jig. And when she opened the door, hit her with a webber that tied her into an instant package.

“Bagheera!” she screamed, falling sidelong as the strands of plastic tangled around her legs.

Pop.

Still gathering himself for a pounce which could have carried him the full length of the hallway, straight to the intruder’s head, the mountain lion flinched, moaned, made as though to scrabble at an irritation on his chest—and collapsed.