Alien Accounts (24 page)

Drum. Drum would corner information? Drum would compress all information into a single message, which it (someone?) would eat. Drum was taking over the microwave towers, the coax, the telephones, the TV stations, the satellites … and one Thursday evening everyone would be told that they (all the others?) were under arrest. Under body arrest, whatever that meant. Drum was having its heart transplanted? To another company, Lion Oil. Spell it backwards.

No, or Drum was buying, stealing, getting at that feeblest of all communication links – between inside man (‘My bowels now function normally, Ground Central. All systems go. Repeat …’) and outside man (‘Do you read Breughel? I read Mao. Anyone read the Bible? He has not read Carter Brown’s
No Blonde Is an Island
.’).

‘What are you thinking?’ Anne asked.

‘Huh?’

‘You look like a Xomboid. I’ll bet you didn’t know it could be like this, is that it?’

‘There’s more where that came from. Just put down that cigarette.’

More? There had to be more, and he turned to her again, seeking. His tongue probed her mouth, taking readings from electrical fillings in his mouth her mouth probed his tongue probed his mouth taking electrical fillings from her readings his readings; under his hand a pulse; their nerve ends took hold swelling with data merging … merged.

Who was Murd? What was the fictitious
Lion Oil Company?
What about the Misses Bunne? Who was asking all these questions of whom? What happened to Travers? Did ‘David’ control the reality of the firm? Of the firmament? Who controlled the reality of ‘David’? Why was Max Heiliger?

The messages flowed and structured himherthem; he looked into her eye once; again he looked out of her eye. Their double back shivered as nerve splices made, coded molecules unzipped to one another, particles collided and collapsed (emitting final pictures of the return of the Yomboids, final answers looped through final answers that doesn’t make sense I know but get to a telephone no time to pick it up and dial just flow in with the final answer a gun inside a never mind the exchange hurry on to the CIA tape constantly running constantly playing The Time Is Exactly the time is running the final answer a gun barrel in a flower in a banana in a gun my back brain your back brain squeezes the trigger) and they watched the delicate metal petals curl back slowly exposing the rifled ballistic message (O ballistic missal O O O cabalistic O:) ‘Hello, Marilyn …’
‘Disappeared! Damnedest thing I ever saw,’ said Stoat, running through the film again. ‘Both of them? Looked like they just sort of melted together, then disappeared!’ His suntan was fading.

Behind him a pair of code clerks were arguing. ‘Well, all I can say is, I read the same story under a different title when it first came out.
Lion Oil
, it was called, and I say it was a lot of poop.’

‘God, it’s Galt again. He’s been signalling every two minutes, all damned day. Then he’ll say he wants a bedpan, and as soon as I get him on it, “Never mind.” I’m tired.’

‘Maybe he’s got a crush on you.’

‘Probably. He doesn’t know I’m married, because I can’t find my name badge. I thought I had it in my pocket – here it is … there. “Mrs E. Bland.” Maybe
next
time he starts ogling me while I’m feeding him his pablum or putting him on the pan, maybe
next
time he’ll take the
hint
.’

‘But you’re not actually physicians?’ The chief surgeon smiled.

‘Well, then, I’m afraid I couldn’t allow …’

Freag spoke in a tone of kindly menace. ‘Don’t be a dumb shit!’ he said quietly. ‘All we want to do is get the body
first
. Warm, if possible. As for medical doctors – well, we can
buy
a couple of hundred or so, over and above the hundred we have running around the lab right now.’

‘That’s right,’ said Dr Logan, who breathed with increasing difficulty. ‘Who believes in
symptomatic
medicine, anyway?’

Seeing the surgeon stiffen as if taken by a total body erection, Freag turned savagely on his colleague. ‘For Christ’s sake, Logan, shut up! Don’t listen to him, Doctor, he’s a Zen macrobiotics nut. Brilliant innovator with cars, knows nothing about the – ahem – life sciences.

‘But let me just say this, doctor to doctor. Do us a little favor. Fix up all the waivers, papers, etc., then just shoot the body over to us in dry ice. You won’t regret it, I promise you.’

‘Well, I don’t know. Professional favors, yes, but you three gentlemen are not exactly in the profess …’

‘Well, we’ve got a dying heart patient over there at Drum Labs, that’s all I know! This isn’t a matter of professional favors!’

The surgeon looked shaken. ‘Dying? But this “donor” isn’t critical, you know. You may never get a heart from
him
. Unless you count on something like his “accident-proneness” to knock him off. And where could he be better protected against accidents than right here?’

‘We’ll take that chance. If I know Galt, he’ll probably fall out of bed on his head or something. Could happen any day.’

Logan erupted in a sudden coughing fit. The surgeon drew back, while Ortiz patted the brilliant innovator on the back. Dabbing at blood-flecks on his lips, Logan whispered, ‘Yes, Galt is very Yin, very Yin. Needs a proper diet: whole-grain cereals and very little liquid.’

A professional cast came into the chief surgeon’s eye. ‘I believe you’re hemorrhaging; better step down to the emergency ward and have
someone take a look.’

He made a move as if to support his arm, but Logan drew back quickly. ‘Keep your symptomatic hands off! I know what the hell’s wrong with me! Too much centripetal downward force – I’m overloaded with salads and Vitamin C.’

‘Doctor, come quickly!’ Nurse Bland came pounding down the stairs, looking radiant. ‘It’s Mr Galt! He …’

Ortiz, Logan and Freag shoved past her and ran up the stairs.

‘Good idea,’ whispered Born to his subordinates, as the three of them marched down the aisle between beds.

‘Eh?’

‘Putting on our lab coats, posing as staff. See Galt anywhere?’

Stoneweg shook his head. ‘How about behind that screen?’

‘Yes … Ah, Mr Galt. How are we feeling this morning?’

The patient did not reply.

‘Now, young man, we re just going to run a few tests, a few routine – my bag, Gibbel. Not that one, that’s the dry ice.’

Born drew a stethoscope from the proper bag. He took it in both hands, holding the rubber tubing like a garotte, and approached the bed.

Stoneweg, who had been leaning over the patient, exclaimed, ‘The son of a bitch’s croaked already!’

‘What?’

‘Must’ve just done it, sliced his neck on this glass tube. Still warm.’

‘Excellent. Boys, I think we’re the first to find the body. Now get busy with that scalpel, Duane.’

Dr Stoneweg, who had once had training as a mortuary assistant, began pulling on a pair of rubber gloves. Born seized his arm. ‘For Christ’s sake, we’re not washing dishes on television. Just grab the ticker and let’s move out!’

Stoneweg took up a likely-looking knife, bared the patient’s chest, and paused.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. But I – uh – hardly know where to start. I’m not very good at this, I guess. In fact, at Sunday dinners, my wife won’t even let me …’

‘Will-you-hurry-up?’

Stoneweg plunged in then, and in a few minutes was elevating the organ of emotion over the bag of dry ice. Freag’s hand, then his menacing smile, came around the screen. ‘I’ll take that, gentlemen. Thank you.’

‘Like hell!’ Gibbel slashed at his face with a scalpel, nicking Freag’s chin.

‘So that’s the way you want it?’ Freag flung a loaded urine flask at him, then grabbed another weapon from the medical bag and went into a fighter’s crouch. ‘All right, baby, if that’s how you want it, baby, come and get it, baby, anytime, come on, it’s waiting for you, baby, if that’s …’

Born kicked the screen over on him. Ortiz swung a wooden crutch and caught Born behind the ear. Stoneweg kicked Ortiz in the stomach. Logan
leaped in the air and threw out one hand in a karate manoeuvre that knocked Stoneweg to his knees and sent the heart skidding under a bed. Gibbel carved the air and cursed, waiting for Freag to work his way out from under the screen. Logan went diving after the heart. Ortiz revolved the crutch again, slamming Born in the side of the head, breaking his upper plate. And so on.

DRUM PLANS SPLICE WITH BELL

DRUM-LION OIL MERGER?

BELL TO TAKE OVER DRUM INC

LION OIL TO ACQUIRE DRUM

BELL WILL ADD LION OIL

DRUM TO GET IN OIL

When Miss Bunne had cleared out the pile of rags from Travers’s office, she shovelled it onto the slot in the wall which led to the incinerator in the sub-basement. Winded, she sat down for a moment and fussed with her hair.

In so doing, her sleeve slipped back, and she read the retirement date stencilled on her arm.

‘Whew! No wonder I’m tired. I almost forgot.’ She rang for Miss Bunne.

‘It’s about my retirement, Miss Bunne,’ she said, ‘due yesterday’

‘Lucky you!’ They exchanged smiles. ‘Well, now, what do you have? Any keys, company property?’

‘It’s all right here, Miss Bunne,’ Miss Bunne said, indicating the neat pile on the desk.

‘That about does it, then.’ Miss Bunne stepped up to her, took her arm and read the date.

‘Wish my replacement luck.’

‘I will. Have a good time, now.’ Miss Bunne removed the staples holding the arm in place, flattened it, and pushed it in the incinerator slot. She did the same with the other arm, the other arm of Miss Bunne, then the rest.

When she had finished and tidied up, she was winded.

‘Can it be?’ she wondered aloud, and rolled back her sleeve. It was. She rang for Miss Bunne.

‘Phase One begins as soon as Kravon gets his new heart,’ Max explained to the polished shoe of Mr Murd. ‘He will feed the pigeons in the park. A “policeman” (really one of us) will accuse him of molesting the pigeons and “arrest” him.

‘This is a signal to the watchers on the rooftops, who will immediately lower a basket of deadly snakes to the pavement. This should divert a lot of police and firemen to the vicinity of Breughel Street, and if it doesn’t, our arson squad stands ready at the fireworks dealer
here
.’

He indicated a point on the map, hoping that Mr Murd did not notice how his forefinger was getting light in patches.
That Argentine body paint guy saw me coming,
he thought.
A ‘two-year guarantee’. Ha.

‘Of course, Kravon will have slipped a few homing pigeons in among the others, and poisoned them. During the ruckus they take off, headed for
here
. But, depending on how much poison each one gets, they should drop anywhere from
here
to
here
.

‘The messages they carry are of course fakes, dummies to draw off the police and National Guard to this nearby ghetto. where they believe a riot is imminent. To convince them, we have Phil Wang right
here
in a tree, armed with a rifle. He’ll start picking off cops when the first bird has fallen. The
real
message will be indicated by the spacing of the fallen birds along this line from
here
to
here
, and we have briefed our departmentstore “pickets” on this. They are to seal off the entrances, pre venting the re-emergence of all telephone company operators who have gone shopping on their lunch hour. The “pickets” are equipped with Mace.’

He paused, momentarily fascinated by his own reflection in the dark surface of the shoe. A distant telephone rang.
1
am
peeling. Jesus, how to explain this?

‘At that point the systematic exchange-jamming begins. Our 1000 agents in various parts of the city will each start dialling one number of this exchange, and continue dialling it throughout Phase One.

‘Here Able Company goes in to the main entrance of the telephone company building. They smash the displays of new Princess telephones in several exciting colors, and they bayonet all the pretty receptionists. The main objective is to block all the stairs and elevators, and Dog company, disguised as a telephone company bowling team, will stand by to come in and help. I don’t see why we shouldn’t rely on a few pounds of plastic explosives here, do you? Think it might hurt our image?’

The shoe said nothing, and the sock above it looked bored.

‘Now our anarchists start something
here
at the corner of Breughel and Nixon,’ he went on anxiously. ‘Our “kids” will be playing over here, hopscotch and the like, but actually chalking the location of buried manholes. Our “American Legion” will get in a fight with our anarchists, and our “National Guard” will move in to break it up, using flamethrowers. They may actually fry a few for effect, but – now get this – they will in reality be melting the asphalt at the chalked spots! If they can start another fire, too, so much the better.

‘Well, from there on, it’s 1-2-3. With all the deadly snakes and firehose around, nobody’s going to notice a few yards of telephone cable being pulled up. We just wind it up on the reel of a firetruck and drive away.’