The Media Candidate (6 page)

“Well, I’ve just retired from a long career in
science, and I felt this was a good time for me to help … or, I
guess, give back something for human … for the community.”

“That’s very noble of you. What brings you to
CBS?”

“I guess that’s pretty serendipitous. You see,
I’m not a registered CBS voter. I’m not registered at all. I’ve
kept my nose to the grindstone for a long time. In fact, I haven’t
voted for probably longer than you’ve been around. That’s why I
want to do something to help.” Elliott broke eye contact with Burns
and momentarily stared away. “I’ve been a taker … not a giver. You
understand what I mean?”

Burns sat motionless and emotionless.

“I guess it’s hard for someone your age to
appreciate what I’m trying to say.”

“I understand perfectly,” she said. “I often
feel the same way. I’m curious about why you chose CBS.”

“That’s the serendipity. CBS is the only party
with an office here in the city.”

“But with holographic multimedia, that’s hardly
a consideration anymore,” Burns replied.

“I know. Maybe I’m old fashioned. I just wanted
to deal with someone face to face.”

“I certainly understand. I think this is a
wonderful thing you’re doing.” Burns rose to her feet. “I wish I
had more time to talk this morning, but I just came from a rally at
the University and I have a virtual conference meeting with the
state director in a short time, so I need to finish changing and
prepare for that. We’re all quite busy right about now.” She walked
with him toward the door. “There may be some very valuable things
you can help us with in the near term. Let me think about our plans
and get back to you.”

The interview was over as quickly as it had
started. Elliott found himself standing beside his bicycle before
he even realized what had happened. He stood there
immobile—wondering. In a moment, he was pointed toward home, but
his spirit was captured in that third floor suite.

“I’d say a couple of hundred students will show
up for that event,” Burns said. She sat near the end of the same
table at which she’d interviewed Elliott earlier that day. A
life-size hologram of the state CBS director sat at the head of the
table. Hundreds of miles away, the same conference was taking place
between the state director and a hologram of Burns in his
conference room.

“Good!” said the state director. “That’s all I
have on my agenda. Now I’d like you to speak with our new field
liaison officer, Sherwood, about the old guy you talked to today.”
The state director’s hologram faded out and Sherwood faded in,
standing directly across the table from Burns. He peered down at
her over his pipe. The smoke billowed upward and out of the
hologram leaving no trace.

“Tell me what happened, Burns,” he said.

“Got a cold call from an old guy who wants to
volunteer for the party. Says it’s some kind of public service
thing. Sounds sincere, or he’s a hell of an actor. Not sure what to
make of it. His name’s Elliott T. Townsend. Says he just retired
and wants to help people, or something. Ever hear of anything so
bizarre?”

“His party affiliation?” Sherwood
questioned.

“Claims not to be affiliated. He used to
volunteer for the Libertarian Party when he was in college. You
ever hear of that one?”

“Did he say anything about some files he may
have acquired from the University?”

“What kind of files?” A period of silence
followed. “No.”

“Did he seem suspicious of the candidates?”

“Not just the candidates, but the whole
political process.”

“Do you trust him?” Sherwood asked.

“You can’t trust anybody as far out as him.”

“Anything else?”

“No,” said Burns.

“Let me know if he makes any further
contact.”

“Okay.”

“But do not contact him.”

Sherwood reached for a button, and the holograms
at each end of the conference evaporated.

PART
TWO

“But lo, men have become the tools of their
tools.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Fifteen-year-old Sherwood sat on his front porch
one Saturday awaiting his monthly issue of
Double Agent
. It
was two days late, and he fantasized the mailman taking it home.
“If he does not bring it today,” he mumbled, “I am going to tail
him and find out what he did with it.”

He relived last month’s “true life” spy
adventure. Saber Tomb was last seen setting up an inflatable M-53
antenna on the balcony of X-Dog’s apartment to transmit ocean-test
data on the latest Q-Line North Korean nuclear submarine. The story
was continued just as the North Korean RF source locator had locked
on to a side lobe of the transmitter signal and pinpointed the
source.
Tomb is smart
, he thought,
but how would he get
away?

Suddenly the robotic mail tricycle cart appeared
rolling down the sidewalk. Then the mailman appeared, head bowed to
the packet of mail in his hands.

Sherwood fixed his eyes on that packet, looking
for the international orange cover. When it appeared, he sighed
with relief.
Yes! Come to me Saber Tomb
, he thought.
Now
we will see how you deal with those North Korean devils!

These heroes had been his real family. The
secret codes of a dozen spies crowded his mind like baseball
statistics do most boys. He knew each agent’s tricks. He applauded
their ingenuity, celebrated their bravery, and imitated their
treachery.

He bought kits for a laser-bounce listening gun
and an infrared snooper-scope from the
Double Agent
classifieds. His financial resources might include the change he
forget to give his mother or the few dollars that would disappear
from her dresser. She encouraged his enthusiastic purchases of rare
stamps, so he solicited cash for those special stamps, then bought
some cheap surrogates to satisfy her alacrity. Sometimes she wrote
him a check to the stamp company. He preferred cash.

His parabolic listening device introduced him to
the “natural state” of girls. He found that some girls thought
about sex as much as he did, which repulsed him and his Victorian
model of females.

He planted an FM wireless microphone under a
library table where a group of girls sat, and what he overheard
nourished his plan for his first sexual encounter with a girl. He
built an audiotape mixer in his basement electronics shop. He taped
some erotic music and electronically mixed it with a spoken message
of his own that subliminally suggested that the girl was getting
very excited and should take her clothes off. His plan, however,
assumed he would be able to get a girl to listen to the tape with
him. It was never field-tested.

He bought an ultra-miniature TV camera, which he
installed in the ceiling of the girls shower room from the crawl
space above it. This became his new window to sex. The sting of his
subliminal tape defeat made him aware of a basic shortcoming in
that earlier strategy. He’d failed to use the resources available
to him, information privy to him alone that could make the
difference between victory and defeat. His arrogance propelled him
toward spying like oxygen draws a whale to the ocean’s surface.

He listened again to a conversation he’d
recorded with his library bug.

First Girl: “Gary thinks he’s perfect cool in
bed, but he’s, like, really flapping me lately. I just don’t know
anymore about him … or any poke.”

Second Girl: “You still like me, don’t you? You
know, I never, like, had anybody like you. You are so major
gris.”

First Girl: “That’s what’s so, like, ripping.
I’d rather rip with you than any poke. I think about the other
night, like, all the time. I want us to rip again so bad, and I
don’t give a damn if I, like, ever see another boy again.
Especially that Gary drub.”

Second Girl: “Why don’t you, like, meet me at my
sister’s place tonight? She’s total cool.”

First Girl: “Okay, but we have to be, like,
total prude. I told you what my brother or my father might do to me
if they found out I was dishonoring the family.”

Second Girl: “But you know I'm not religious.
”

First Girl: “That's even worse. It would be
better even if you were, like, Christian. They hate Infidels
plenty, but if you're, like, atheist, that's even worse. I told you
what they can do to girls that dishonor their family. ”

Second Girl: “But there are, like, laws, you
know. They can't just, you know, totally kill you. Or whatever.
”

First Girl: “Ha. You just don't get it. My
brother says the cops are afraid of us now. You've seen all those
riots and stuff on TV. My brother says the president, or somebody,
makes them say, like, they're sorry or something if they butt into
anything religious. He says there's this law that says nobody can
say, like, anything bad about any religion. So he can frag the cops
and do anything he wants, as long as it's for our religion. Because
nobody, like, dares to say anything against him. ”

Second Girl: “Well, don’t worry about my sister.
She's, like, totally prude for me. She'd never say anything”

Sherwood played that part over repeatedly and
propped up color printouts of Fatima and her lover from his shower
collection. The pictures motivated his greatest espionage adventure
yet.

The next day he implemented the plan. His mother
would be gone that evening, so the opportunity window was open. It
wasn’t easy because he so rarely talked to girls, least of all like
Fatima. But as he approached her to a safe distance, something else
took charge. Fear retreated. It was replaced by hunter
instinct.

Fatima stood under a tree while Sherwood watched
for the right moment. Her dark hair teased an amber neck. A single
earring dangled from her left ear. She talked to another girl whose
animated gestures didn’t detract his attention from his prey. The
two girls laughed, their notes radiating in unison; but he was
tuned to just one. Then the second girl began to back away from
Fatima, talking then listening, then talking again. Laughter rang
once more. The second girl walked away.

He approached Fatima with eyes fixed. Short,
regular steps brought him efficiently and discreetly to engagement
range. He’d always found it easier to talk to someone if he
imagined himself on an espionage mission. At last, he didn’t have
to pretend.

“Hello, Fatima.”

A smile spread over her face as she turned
around. As the inertia of the dark strands carried them beyond her
turn, she reached up to sweep them aside, and saw it was Sherwood.
The smile immediately evaporated. Registering a look of
disappointment, contrived grace appeared and triumphed. “Hi.”

“How are your soirees with Sara at her sister’s
place?”

Fatima’s jaw dropped, and she could do nothing
more than simply stare at Sherwood. Then her legs automatically
retreated a step, and a swallow went down hard as the amber quality
of her skin turned chalky.

“Is she still better than Gary?”

“What … Where did you—?” Fatima stammered,
retreating another step.

“Is she still major gris?”

Breathing stopped as her eyes glazed over. Then
she willed air back into her lungs. Her next breath was labored and
raucous. “What do you want?”

“Do not be alarmed, Fatima, I can keep secrets.”
A grin just began to unfold.

She turned her head sideways, biting her lips.
“How’d you find out?”

“Suppose you come over to my house this evening,
and we can discuss it.”

“Why should …” She stopped and turned back
toward him. The same fragment of a grin greeted her again. “You
want me to—”

His mouth curved slightly upward as his eyes
wandered toward the canopy of leaves above them. With the snap of a
whip, they rotated back to hers, the incipient grin still pursuing.
“Then we can discuss this in a more civilized, and intimate,
setting.”

That evening, Fatima responded to Sherwood’s
invitation. This was nothing like his fantasy with the subliminal
tape. This was real flesh. This wasn’t plotting and subterfuge and
watching. This was the payoff. This was where the juices of his
dreams filled in the gaps of his life.
The bottom line
, he
thought as he collapsed on top of Fatima.
Yes, this is the
bottom line.

Sherwood found that sex was the most challenging
adventure yet and well worth the effort. And Fatima and Sara were
qualified instructors. After his first few encounters, he
anticipated wallowing in this sea of soft flesh and liquid touches
forever. The intensity was beyond what he could’ve imagined,
especially when all three of them mingled purely for his
electricity.

But anxiety swelled in him as their encounters
continued. Whether he was unable to relate to others, even on his
terms, or he couldn’t submit to any form of control, even to
achieve his own agenda, was never resolved. All he knew for sure
was that he couldn’t enjoy long-term anything with anyone but
himself.

Their encounters became less frequent and
finally stopped. His subterfuge world held the real pleasures that
could be delivered day after day, without a price.

But as many questions as this adventure raised
and as intense as his gratification had first been, what he
remembered most was a single lesson. For years, he’d followed the
exploits of fabled spies and emulated their conquests. Now he
understood why such attention is given to this game he’d once
played just for fun. He now understood that dealing from a position
of superior knowledge made a vast difference in the outcome of the
game. This was why spies plied the earth. It wasn’t just for
fun.