Identity Matrix (1982) (37 page)

Tonight, in fact, I'm going down to Misty's Place if I can lug this
really
out-of-balance body there and take a night out without getting
too
tired, and watch the Las Vegas debut of Danielle Dynamite, the Red-headed Rocket from Rhode Island, finally here after her first big na-tional tour.

I wonder if Harry Parch will also be in the audience?

CODED-TOP SECRET-PRIORITY A

DISPOSITION-MASTER

PENTAGON

FILE

HYDRA

ONLY

FROM-DIRECTOR, HYDRA

SUBJECT-OPERATION "TRIPLE PLAY"

COVERAGE-GENERAL

SUMMARY

AND

EVALUATION

OF

OPERATION

It should be clear from the attached memoir that, despite impossible odds and tremendous risks, "Triple Play" succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. A combi-nation of brains, luck, and tremendous dedication and sacrifice were necessary for it to succeed, and for those of some future time who might wonder at why such incredible risks were taken, let me assure you that the finest minds of this country supported by the most so-phisticated computer analysis found that, while the op-eration had, frankly, less than a fifteen percent chance of being totally successful, there was simply no other alternative. The fact that it worked is certainly the ulti-mate justification, but those who might question what we did and how we did it should also consider the fact that no suggested alternative gave odds which could even be recognized as such.

Consider: quite by accident, or, if you will, sloppiness, this government was faced with two incontrovertible facts. First, that we had, in fact, been penetrated by alien beings from off this planet whose abilities and technology were far in advance of our own and whose behavior indicated that they were hostile to humankind. Second, that these beings could trade minds with us or with each other as they chose. Further, they knew enough about us to easily pass our most stringent muster, yet we knew nothing about them.

Naturally, this information was not given to the pub-lic, as the panic and paranoia it would cause would only aid the enemy. In fact, only a special team composed of the heads of the CIA, FBI, DIA and other security organi-zations and the Joint Chiefs were ever informed, and were directed by the President to create a crisis man-agement team, code-named Hydra, to combat the men-ace. It is almost certain that, at no time, did the number of unsecured top personnel—that is, those with liberty and not living in a secured environment—exceed a dozen.

The first task, of course, was to create a security force capable of at least recognizing the enemy and perhaps placing a bit of pressure on them. This was organized under Chief Inspector Harold G. Parch, who had super-vised the original team that had exposed the first aliens. Parch is a strange man, as accurately pictured in the Gonser narrative, but he is both fiercely loyal and intensely patriotic. He is also, quite certainly, dangerously psychopathic, but in a manner useful to us. I would in no case wish Parch to date my daughter, but he is the first one I would trust with the family jewels, and he was perfect for his overall security role. We owe Parch not merely for the success of Triple Play, but also for our own necks, since, in the course of the operation, all of us violated our most sacred oaths and principles in what we believed and believe to be a desperate cause.

In addition to security—which included not only track-ing the enemy but also securing their existence from the outside world—there had to be a concurrent operation to find a defense against this body-switching ability. As a result, IMC

was formed, with the finest minds and finest machines available at all times. As the Gonser manuscript makes clear, while we never did find out how they so easily did it, we did find a way to do it mechanically. Show the finest minds in a field that someone else can do something they can't and give them almost unlimited funds and resources and they will almost certainly do it.

Of course, just when we found a proper defense we discovered that we had not one, but two hostile alien powers, both with this switching ability, on our hands. We were, then, on the horns of a dilemma, since we found ourselves the innocent civilians in the midst of a war between superpowers we could barely understand. Obviously the only thing we could do was pick a side and try and arrange it so that it would take us under its protection. A very subtle task, not only because we had to at all costs prevent a military confrontation with either side that we would inevitably lose while, at the same time, we had to evaluate and choose the lesser of two evils among the alien powers. Since we had a num-ber of captured Urulus but none of the opposition, we had to start with the Urulu side. Gonser/Carpenter's early work with "Dan Pauley" and her complete evalua-tion of them helped enormously, and the relationship developed between the two formed the cornerstone, as it were, of Triple Play.

Our problem, of course, was that time was against us, and there was strong evidence that the Association, at least, was actively engaged in influencing our affairs while the Urulu were not. It became fairly easy to tell them apart, since the Urulu switched minds totally without fail, while the Association seemed more concerned with the by-product of the process, the selective editing of the memory and personality. Faced with clear evi-dence of active opposition by one side, we felt we had no choice but to opt for the Urulu as our "friends."

The trouble, of course, was that the Urulu were, at best, indifferent to us and had no desire to be our friends, nor did they consider our planet and race worthy of concern no matter what was happening. In the meantime, intelligence clearly showed the Association patterns in the cult's growth and; almost by accident, stumbled on the evidence that the Association had actu-ally penetrated the White House.

At that point Hydra's hand was forced, since the Pres-ident knew of IMC and Hydra and, therefore, our liqui-dation or takeover despite our best efforts was only a matter of time, perhaps very little time. To buy that time, it was necessary to take drastic measures.

Triple Play, of course, was already in motion at that point. Having decided that Gonser/Carpenter and Tom-linson were the best lead to the Urulu leadership, an intensive study of what the very alien Urulu valued in other people and other civilizations based on our prior work was condensed to specific personality points, and from those we created the human personality with val-ues and outlooks we believed would hit the Urulu where it counted. The original personality recordings of Gonser and Tomlinson, then, were edited, altered, and rewrit-ten so that, when added once again to their created new personalities they would become the kind of people the Urulu, it was hoped, would identify with and want to help. And since they would be, hopefully, the samples, the Urulu might well take them as representative of the human race itself.

We then "discovered" them in their new security-created lives, added our modified recordings of their past selves, and arranged to have this "Pauley"

broken out of IMC.

And it was here that the ultimate gamble had to be taken. We could not afford to have "Pauley" immedi-ately spirit the women to his superiors for evaluation, since to a race that swapped minds as easily as we snap fingers the psychosurgery we had so recently performed would have been painfully obvious. Therefore, the women had to be allowed to live as their new selves for a while, to settle in and
become
those newly designed psyches we counted so much on. This, however, meant potentially losing "Pauley," and we thought we had completely blown it when so much time elapsed. Fortunately, the Association ships and those of the Urulu are quite differ-ent, and we detected no Urulu ships arriving after the escape period, nor any departing. We knew, also, that the Association had hit the isolated Urulu bases hard, thanks in part to the fact that we leaked what we knew of those bases via the President to help them out. This served several purposes. For one, it kept Pauley a fugi-tive and made his escape from Earth extremely difficult. Second, it convinced him of the scope of the Associa-tion's subtle attack. Third, it confirmed once and for all that the President—and, alas, as we discovered in the same way, the Vice President—were already controlled by the Association. And, finally, by leaking that infor-mation we gave the Association a reason for letting Hydra and IMC

continue, at least for a while. We repre-sented no direct threat and were a source of information on their enemy.

Finally, however, we simply were forced to act. Evi-dence showed that the Association was poised for a much deeper penetration of government and that Hydra and IMC were in imminent danger not of being disman-tled but of being taken over by the enemy. Since Speaker Kelleam, thanks to his visit and "

demonstration" of IMC, was very much
our
man, our survival became obvious.

The assassinations we arranged and the terror-ist attacks we perpetrated caught the Association off guard. It was pretty easy not only to break the news to the public but also smash their political apparatus. Of course, we knew this would be a temporary solution, but we were banking on them not having a significant military force deployed for us. This was one time when it really paid to be a primitive jerkwater island off in the fringes of a war.

The actions had the effect of reviving Triple Play, on which we had almost given up. Seeing what was happening, Pauley took our bait and contacted the two women. We had, thank God, judged him correctly. Know-ing that, eventually, the Association would return in force, and having lived with and made friends with some of our people, he opted, as our profile predicted, to try and convince the Urulu to intervene on our side.

The foregoing manuscript shows that he, and therefore we, were successful.

The personalities we created went unsuspected and contained the elements necessary for a command decision in our favor to be made.

You can certainly argue that the personality and life-style of "Misty Carpenter"

is not one one would like or accept. I certainly am not comfortable with such a ca-sual and, well, immoral lifestyle, but I'm old and very old-fashioned. But we have a younger, more pliant, more tolerant generation, and as one of those who created Misty Carpenter as she is today I can hardly kick. Thank God we always have that younger, adaptable genera-tion! And, of course, she would be terribly shocked at my own actions in this matter if she knew them. If this is the newer generation, I might not accept—but I will not resist. Social evolution, no matter what the cause, has generated more suffering from the resistance to change than to the acceptance of it.

But it's still not
our
world, it's ours only by sufferance of the Urulu who are, I might point out, alien, not friendly on the whole, and not really any more our friends than the Association, for as long as we primi-tives remain at their mercy and sufferance we control not our own destiny.

It used to be simple in the old days. Two armies would march out, fight it out, and the best force would win. Or we'd plant our spies, they'd plant their spies, and we'd battle for advantage in the shadows. But a war where one superior adversary has to be tricked into taking out another superior adversary—well, nobody in history ever had to fight this sort of war before, and I think we can be damned proud of ourselves despite the ugliness we had to perpetrate. History, we all feel, will be kind to us—if, as Carpenter darkly suggests, we do not "blow it." Like her, I suspect we will—the Russians and Chinese in particular are climbing the paranoid walls even now. But we have the only defense. The rest of the world can either take the cure from us or go nuts.

And, when they
do
take the cure, and get not only pro-tection but also a little change in attitude as a bonus, then, maybe, we can allow the Carpenter book to be published. Probably not, though. We don't want anyone planting the idea of judicious editing of the mind right about now.

But we've come this far, and the great enemies in the totalitarian societies are, of course, the most fearful and paranoid of all. They've all got their own IMCs now, of course, but they're ten years or more behind in the hardware necessary to do it right and many years also behind in experimentation we've already done.

When the rulers even now are afraid to shake hands with their closest aids or go to bed with their wives or mistresses, they will eventually
have
to come to us.

And when
they
do, we'll have little trouble with their general populations.

What we need, and have hopefully bought, is time. Time to bring the rest of the world around. Time to educate the population. There's talk of introducing the IM process into medicine next year, for treatment of brain disorders, and after that it'll be mated with teach-ing machines, then . . . In our time, we hope, people will take the IM treatment so much for granted, like they now accept plastic surgery and home computers, that they'll be ready to accept the idea of routine body-switching. That, of course, will transform society beyond our imagination.

And, by that point, car Urulu watchdogs will themselves consider the process so normal and so positively used that there will be no further trouble with them. At the very least the IM will double our IQs, a tremendous leap—children might learn to read again and like it, and without the severe international tension and nihilism rampant through our century they might get the chance to use it.

The hardest part, of course, is that we remain, of ne-cessity, behind the scenes, unknown and unrecognized. I doubt if the Hydra report can ever be known until that social revolution takes place—if it does. Still, it
will
all come out one day. Hydra and IMC are generaly safe, though. We can be just about anybody—and sometimes are. Fewer still know the real identity of Harry Parch, and what he really looks like. Still, I doubt if any of us can ever pass a burlesque house or strip joint again and feel totally secure.

As for me, I am prominent now, but with a little IM
work perhaps my telltale speech patterns will vanish into, say, Brooklynese, and I hope soon to abandon the public life and restart my research work at the new IMC in Colorado, already hard at work—as it has been since before the Urulu kindly saved us the trouble of demol-ishing the old Nevada IMC, obsolete as it was.