The Media Candidate (5 page)

Elliott walked into the breakfast room where
Martha sat with her coffee and paper. “I think I’ve figured out
some things.”

Martha seemed not to hear him, but Elliott knew
better. “I went over to Halvorsen’s office yesterday to look
around.”

The paper dropped and two stern eyes met
his.

“Her files had already been scrubbed clean.
There was only meaningless stuff. At least it looked meaningless to
me, so I just left.”

Martha returned to her paper.

“I did a little library research on COPE, and
you know, it still all sounds like bullshit to me.”

“It’s too early in the morning to argue about
this anymore, Elliott. And besides, I know you’re just looking for
something to do. Now that you’ve got the time, you should get
interested in baseball or something like you used to.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too. But not
about baseball. I need to do something that’ll help me give back.
Society has paid my way my whole career, and now that I’ve got the
time …. I think there’s more wrong with our politics than ever
before. I know you don’t see it that way, probably because you’ve
grown into it slowly. But it’s like I just dropped into it. And I
think our world really needs leadership. My collecting time told me
I need to get involved with politics.”

“You know I watch all those political shows on
TV,” Martha said. “I like to see some really smart, good-looking
candidate win. And you can advise them and everything right from
your TV just by looking at the answer on your screen you want to
send. It’s sure a lot easier than listening to endless debates and
going to a VFW hall to vote like we used to.” She paused to study
Elliott. “But, you know, I just can’t see you in politics. You
might know a lot about quarks and electrons and stuff, but you
hardly ever watch TV. And the only time you read the paper is when
you run out of something scientific. I don’t think you’d fit in on
The Senate Ladder
or
National Countdown
. Besides, all
the candidates nowadays are young and athletic and sexy.”

“But that’s the whole problem. Everybody in
politics today is the same. And none of them even know what it used
to be like. I think there’s room for someone with a different view
of things. I’m not sure what I could do, but we need people to
remember the past, not just accept the present.”

Martha shook her head as she returned to the
paper. “I don’t see what’s wrong with baseball,” she muttered.

Joe was a data clerk. His job was simple. He
received lists of codes and requests for data logs. Each code
corresponded to a COPE identity number and a name, but Joe had no
way of knowing the correlation. He also didn’t know what they were
used for. All he knew was that he was supposed to perform a search
of the Observables Data Base and put together a profile on the
anonymous subject represented by the code. The profile was likewise
coded, so it was difficult to know the identity of the subject. He
could’ve been searching his mother, or himself, and he wouldn’t
have known, unless he took the time to read the encoded
descriptions.

The profile comprised key information about the
subject such as detailed physical, biological, and chemical
descriptions along with every imaginable fact about the subject’s
personal life, family, and associates. Joe’s job was to find all
the scattered pieces and then format the data.

He knew his job would someday be taken over by a
computer since, in principle, there was nothing he did that
couldn’t be done by a computer. The software simply hadn’t been
developed yet, but it was just a matter of time. Joe figured
someone at COPE was probably working on the software right now. But
Joe wasn’t worried about job security. He knew it was so expensive
and time consuming to clear someone to his level of security
clearance that COPE would surely find him a job in one of the other
classified compartmented projects. It had taken four years to get
the security “tickets” needed for this job, and he felt these
tickets were his greatest assets.

Joe sometimes wondered about the data he
collected. It was just zeros and ones somewhere in the vast COPE
computer network. The codes weren’t people, just identifiers; the
profiles weren’t lives, just data. But he read the paper. He knew
about the organized crime murders. He knew that COPE did much more
than audit campaigns. But it was just a job.

Joe had performed the routine a million times.
Any files he’d need later were collected on his removable memory
and placed in a metal-matrix container marked “GX / SHARK BAIT /
COPE TS.” The container was sealed with a Hall-Effect magnetic
latch that only Joe and the Associate Director for Special
Programs, the Asp, could open. The container was then placed in
Joe’s personal safe, locked, and double-checked by another Shark
Bait staff. Any files he no longer needed were erased and written
over with random numbers several times, backwards and forwards.
This ritual completed, Joe was on his way through security and then
home.

On his way out, he met the Asp in the
elevator.

“How’s everything in Profiles, Joe.”

“Just fine, Sir.”

The elevator stopped and let off the only other
person in the elevator. As the door closed, Joe said, “Got an
unusual request for a profile today—originated from a guy named
Sherwood.”

“Yes? What makes it so unusual?”

“It’s just that Sherwood is a field liaison
officer. Never got a request with a FLO origin before, but it had
the proper ECR surveillance authority so I put it in the
queue.”

“And you’re sure it was for surveillance only,
not enforcement.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“I see.”

“Just wondered if this Sherwood guy is okay.
Seems like he’s at a pretty low level for any kind of ECR
profile.”

“I think he’s okay, Joe.” A silence followed
until the elevator stopped, and the Asp quickly walked off.

COPE was rapidly computerizing everything. Over
the years, nearly all of the human interaction with the data had
been turned over to one of COPE’s computers. The philosophy at COPE
was that humans introduced security risk, and they could minimize
exposure to security errors and espionage by relying on computers
to perform every phase of the operations. COPE management felt that
some of COPE’s clandestine operations could be seriously
jeopardized by humans with access to broad ranges of data. Thus, a
data clerk like Joe with a straightforward and well-constrained job
presented little security risk simply because he couldn’t deduce
any meaningful picture of COPE clandestine operations.

For this reason, many of the higher-level
analytical jobs had been computerized first. These were jobs that
required considerable mathematical, scientific, and logical
analysis. These high-level analysts had to access not only data of
all kinds, but also details of the goals of the organization. Thus,
in years gone by, a large number of high-level analysts and
decision makers would know a broad range of details about COPE
operations that made COPE executives feel vulnerable. Top
management decided to reduce that vulnerability by replacing these
analysts with super-intelligent computer programs.

COPE developed complex computer programs using
fuzzy intelligence and chaos theory to perform these high-level
functions. This procedure eliminated most of the human intervention
by replacing thousands of highly skilled mathematicians and
engineers with computer software. But the price was to accept
computer systems, programs, and networks whose complexity grew to
exceed any individual’s ability to understand.

COPE even had its own geosynchronous satellites
to handle most of the bus traffic among its mainframe computers
while using commercial systems to accommodate the overflow. The
system was of mind-numbing complexity. No one person or department
could track its evolution, so COPE created a computer system to
document the system of work stations, desktops, and mainframes as
it proliferated. Another computer program managed the networks.
COPE operations had become totally dependent on its computer.

Traditionally, a single person, the system
manager, was responsible for the operation and maintenance of a
large computer system. COPE adhered to that tradition with one
exception. The COPE computer system manager was such a critical
position that the Director decided that the system manager’s
identity should be a closely guarded secret to shield them from
influences that might have system-wide effects. Thus, only the
Director and the Associate Director for Data Services knew who the
system manager was.

COPE management believed that plans and
objectives were safe now that they’d been tucked into the folds of
a computer network. They believed that, to the extent they could
limit human access to information, a secure and faultless
operational computer system could be maintained. This assumption
might have some merit by traditional computer standards, but the
COPE computer did not comprise traditional technology. It was not
static. It was on a fast track toward computer preeminence. COPE
management still had a lot to learn about computers.

Elliott rode his bicycle to the appointment, a
habit he’d developed over decades. He adhered to the old fashioned
practice of exercise and a healthy diet to stay in shape even
though there were numerous drug-based routines that accomplished
the same thing.

He parked his lone bike near the entrance to the
four-story building and left it unattended. He never even used a
lock since only little kids rode bikes anymore, and his prehistoric
bike should be safe. For years he’d been correct, and it seemed a
safe bet for the future.

After walking up to the third-floor CBS Party
local office, he spoke the name G. Burns to the automatic
receptionist. Within a couple of minutes, a tall woman in her mid
twenties emerged from an unmarked door and offered her hand
confidently. “Townsend? Burns.”

A radiant face framed the formal smile but could
not be subdued by it. It was a face of youthful beauty that
perfectly accentuated her youthful body in a way that classic
beauty accents a mature woman. She motioned for him to follow. A
forest-green dress embellished her the way a frame magnifies a work
of fine art. Her dress exactly matched the color of the bright CBS
logo covering one full wall of the hallway they shared. Following
Burns was an unforeseen pleasure.

Burns’ athletic, yet femininely proportioned
body demanded attention. Hair flowed down over its green backdrop
in a single wave of gold. Elliott’s gaze attended the wave as it
disappeared, leading toward splendid hips dancing in time to the
cadence of heals. Music and art coalesced perfectly in this
impromptu ballet. A single button was undone on the back of her
dress in her otherwise impeccable attire. Considering her obvious
concern for appearance, that button seemed remarkable to
Elliott—and yet it was just a button.

She led him into a small conference room and
motioned him to a seat. The walls were covered with pictures of
political candidates, none of whom Elliott recognized. One
candidate was signing a soccer ball emblazoned with “Hyperbowl XXIX
Champs” before the adoring eyes and cheers of a mob of children.
Another pictured naked women and men entwined in a polygon of love
on bright satin sheets. Elliott couldn’t decide which was the
candidate, even after reading the caption “Joesy Hots, Star of
Every Night – Eighth Congressional District.” A few pictures
included Burns, barely recognizable in her revealing sportswear,
jogging outfits, and ponytails. Every picture he quickly scanned
showed her in a ponytail, laughing and hugging both the equally
vivacious candidates and the young admirers. Everyone was young,
exuberant, and very, very chic. The most interesting was a poster
of a collage of giant baseball cards. Apparently, everybody on some
team was running for something on the CBS ticket.

The furnishings seemed borrowed from a studio
set, like they belonged in a generic office of a generic
corporation. The walnut table looked uncomfortably pregnant with
its bulging middle to afford every subordinate an unfettered view
of each other subordinate, thus frustrating even the most-subtle
early-afternoon nod. The chairs wore standard black cushions and
sprouted plastic legs and arms to clutch their unlucky patrons
according to some unwritten discomfort specification. The walls
withdrew to neutrality in deference to the impotent parry of the
drapes. A wall-TV screen filled one end of the room. It was a
magnificently common conference room, one in which any conservative
manager could seek refuge from decisions behind a wall of committee
approvals and a sea of expert-system computer models and decision
trees. With the exception of the pictures adorning its walls and
the woman enhancing its decor, the conference room personified
mid-management America, celebrating its monotony, apologizing for
its paralysis.

“This is an unusual pleasure, Townsend,” she
said as she seated herself across the table from him. “We don’t get
very many volunteers anymore and, frankly, our volunteer
requirements are quite low since most of our campaign work is
automated or multimedia. And virtually all of the volunteers we
retain are University students or other young people. That’s why I
found your phone call this morning very intriguing. So, how may we
assist you?”

Elliott found it difficult to start, difficult
to put his nebulous vision and ethereal concerns into words. But
even beyond his communication dilemma, he found his hostess to be
disarmingly human, certainly not the champion of hype and the
adversary of sensibility and taste that he’d anticipated. He was
prepared for Burns to be a bimbo, a bouncing, pony-tailed, tanned,
and stunningly nippled beauty who conversed in one and two syllable
words and expounded on the wonders of entertainers and jocks. He
envisioned cartwheels and pom-poms accompanied by base-thumping
sentences escaping in strings of inseparable sounds. Sexual allure
would be explicit and uneasy. In short, he’d anticipated the person
embodied in many of the pictures surrounding him, not the exciting
businesswoman who sat before him.