The Tomorrow File (65 page)

“I know what I’m looking for,” I told him. “Go back to your education.”

He shuffled over to a comer desk. The half-liter of petroport was probably in a drawer. He rationed himself. One half-liter per night. No more. Just enough to make him forget the long, empty corridors.

This area of the pharmacology library was larger than you might have expected. Mostly due to the shielding needed for the radioactive drags. But those were in special vaults equipped with automatic dumbwaiters. The other brews, everything from cobra venom to a synthetic nicotine we had developed for treatment of vascular hemorrhage, were stored on open shelves.

It was easy to find Room G. I switched on the overhead light. I searched around and found Bin 3. In it, last on the right, was Stack 4. I ran my finger along the position labels: L, M, N, O, P, Q, and there was R. I raised my hand to lift it down. And stopped. It was a small glass flask. Airtight stopper. A line had been etched around the bottle. The marking 5 cc was clearly visible. But the level of the liquid in the flask was appreciably below the etched line.

I didn’t touch the bottle. Just stood there with my hand outstretched. Evaporation was impossible. Not that quantity. What else? I could not believe there had been a research project using 416HBL-CW3 which I could not recall. But then I hadn’t remembered that green star in the restricted drug code book.

I switched off the light. Closed the door softly. Walked slowly back to the outer office. Vinnie Altman was tilted back in his swivel chair. Feet up.
Gash
clasped on his lap. His head was back. Eyes closed. Mouth open. He was snoring.

“Going to check the withdrawal file,” I said gently.

He didn’t stir. I tiptoed quietly over to the metal cabinet.

Each restricted drug had a file card. It showed, on one side, the initial deposit stored, at what date, and any additions made, at what date. The other side showed withdrawals. An object withdrawing a restricted drug had to write date, quantity, signature.

I slid open the 400 drawer slowly, easily. I looked to Vinnie Altman. He hadn’t moved. The buzz was constant. I flipped through the cards. I found 416HBL-CW3. I lifted it out carefully. By one comer. Holding the file open with my other hand. With the tips of my fingers.

The card showed an initial deposit of 5 cc of 416HBL-CW3 on November 3, 1988. There had been no additions since the original quantity was stored.

I turned the card over.

There had been one withdrawal.

On November 18, 1998.

Two cc.

I looked for the signature.

It was there.

Nicholas Bennington Flair.

In my own flamboyant scrawl.

Two days later I was on my way to Denver. For a personal inspection of Project Phoenix. Lewisohn’s condition was deteriorating so inexorably that I knew I had to expedite my scenario for his survival. While, he still had sufficient strength to endure it.

Aboard the jet, sipping my fourth vodka-and-Smack of the day, puffing my third cannabis, I reviewed my actions in re the fiddled 416HBL-CW3 file card. I was satisfied that I had done all that a crafty object might do.

My first reaction, of course, upon viewing my own signature, had been akin to, say, witnessing an act of levitation. “I see it but I don’t believe it.” Then I thought possibly I
had
taken the
Clostridium botulinum
and had signed the file card under the influence of hypnosis. Either by a clever operator or by drug. In the precarious world of politics, at that point in time, you learned to breathe the volcano’s fumes.

But the date, November 18, 1998, precluded the hypnosis theory. On that particular day, I had been in Washington, D. C., conferring with Joe Wellington. I was certain. Later, my memory was verified by a notation in my appointment schedule.

Then, still staring at the file card, still shaken, I had the wit to check the register. That big ledger in which every visitor to the restricted drug library had to note date, time of entrance and exit, signature. Sure enough, “Nicholas Bennington Flair” had entered the library at 2320 on November 18, 1998, and exited at 2345.

But I was gratified to see that the signature on the register was identical with the signature on the 416HBL-CW3 file card. I don’t mean the two signatures were similar; they were
identical.
To every hook, dash, curlicue. Vinnie Altman still snoozing, still gently snoring, I brought the file card over to the ledger to compare the two.

No object ever duplicates a signature exactly. Ever. But, of course, those were not signatures. Closer examination proved that. The pressure of pen throughout had been uniform: no faintness or heaviness of line. Ergo: not writing at all, but printing or inscribing with a mechanical or automatic device. The methodology then became apparent.

Like most executives, my form letters were printed and signed by an office computer. When the quantity desired was limited, and mass distribution unnecessary, identical letters were Instox duplicated from a signed master. When many letters of varied subject matter but of routine nature were prepared, they would be typed from my dictated tapes by Ellen Dawes’ assistants, scanned by her for accuracy, and “signed” with a small, portable imprinter. This was a mechanical device not unlike a postal cancellation meter. It contained an ink supply. A lever depressed a plastisteel cut that was an exact (photographic) reproduction of my signature. The cut was an em equivalent of an engraving. The "signature" looked authentic. But being mechanically reproduced, pressure was uniform throughout.

The problem of my “genuine” signature appearing on file card and ledger having been solved, to my satisfaction, I next turned to how it had been snookered. My signature meter was usually kept in my office safe. To be requested by Ellen Dawes when there were a number of letters to be “signed.” Then returned to me. But not always. When I was absent from the office on those Washington trips, or the PR expedition, the meter was turned over to Ellen. She should have kept it locked up. Knowing her, I didn’t suppose she did. But even locked in my safe it would not have been secure. What was?

Having relatively easy access to my signature meter, how would a terrorist group planning to steal a quantity of
Clostridium botulinum
have proceeded? Putting myself in their place, with their arcane but obviously powerful motivation, I plotted a possible scenario. During the twenty-four hours following my discovery of the missing416HBL-CW3, I put the plan to a field test. With certain refinements.

My preparations may sound complex; they were actually not. I sent Ellen Dawes to the stationery stockroom for paper, envelopes, pads, pencils, rubber bands, paperclips, and a quantity of several forms. Including 100 blank restricted drug file cards. I only needed one. Which I filled out for 416HBL-CW3. I showed an authentic initial entry of 5 cc on November 3, 1988, and no additional deposits. The withdrawal side I left blank. I “aged” the card by scraping it several times across the surface of my office plasticarp. When I had finished, it looked ten years old. Reasonably.

I then paid a casual visit to A Lab, wandered about until my presence was ignored, and filched a 5 cc flask of glycerol. I then left the compound, briefly, to purchase a half-liter bottle of petroport at a federal grogshop. I brought the bottle to the Pharmacology Team Lab and told them I needed it doped with an instant hypnotic and a memory eraser. A restricted project. No questions were asked. The seal was carefully lifted, screw top removed, contents contaminated, the bottle restored to its original appearance.

Then, just to prove to myself the fiddling could have been carried out by a single object
_r
I donned a greatcoat over my zipsuit and filled the pockets with my signature meter, the newly prepared restricted drug file card, the small flask of glycerol, the half-liter of fixed petroport. No problem of storage.

“Vinnie,” I said. After he had turned off the alarm, unlocked and opened the door. “This is just a social visit. Someone gave me this jug of happiness. Thought you might like it.”

I handed over the dozied liquor.

“Why, doc,” he said. Coming out of his fog for a moment. “Mighty nice of you. Have one with me?”

“You go ahead,” I said. “A little too sweet for me.”

We went back to his desk where a copy of another Danish magazine,
Clit,
was spread wide. As it should have been. I waited while Vinnie poured himself a plastiglass of my petroport.

“Over the hills and far away,” he said. Raising the glass and draining half of it.

Thankfully, he was seated when it hit him. I took the glass from his hand before the remainder spilled. His head had fallen sideways. He was snoring busily.

I went back to Room G, Bin 3, Stack 4, Position R. My original idea had been to bring in an identical glass flask filled to the etched line with 5 cc of pure glycerol. But close investigation by the Bureau of Public Security would have revealed the substitution. Also, I would have had to remove the original flask, taking it with me in my pocket when I left. The notion of striding on icy pavements carrying a glass bottle of enough toxic bacteria to stop the entire population of the US was not an endearing prospect.

So I merely removed the stopper of the original bottle and poured in enough pure glycerol to bring the level up to the etched line. I did this as porcupines fornicate—very, very carefully. I doubted if even heavy analysis of the contents would reveal the dilution.

I replaced the original bottle in its original position. After wiping the glass free of prints. Turned off the lights. Returned to the outer office. Carrying the remainder of the pure glycerol. Vinnie Altman was still snoozing comfortably, the eraser busily at work in his brain destroying the memory of the previous hours.

I then removed the fiddled 416HBL-CW3 card from the file and substituted the new card I had prepared. It looked right at home. But before I did that, I satisfied myself that my signature meter could have been used to imprint my name on file card and register. It could have. Easily. But I didn’t record a notice of my current visit, of course. No need. 

I remembered to pour the dregs of Vinnie Altman’s drink back into the bottle and then take with me the remainder of the contaminated petroport. I switched off the alarm, opened both locks, exited, slid the door softly shut behind me. Alarm and locks connected automatically. Beautiful. I had done what I could to pillow the attack upon me.

In the jet, beginning the descent to the Denver airport, I reflected again, briefly, on the problem of who had been responsible. For the programmed outbreak of botulism in GPA-11 and for the attempt to fix the blame on me. Some terrorist group, I supposed. Perhaps frantic leftovers from the Society of Obsoletes’ conspiracy who had not yet been terminated. But it was fruitless to wonder.

It was much more profitable to fantasize on Louise Rawlins Tucker’s dinner party to be held the following Sunday. I had confirmed date and time by flasher. She had said casually, open-eyed, “I think you’ll know most of the objects, Nick. They’re fun. Grace Wingate promised to come.”

The Denver Field Office had been alerted to my arrival. There was an official limousine awaiting me at the gate. I did not find those trappings offensive. At the complex itself, Phoebe Hunt-zinger met me at the door. We went immediately to a colloquy with the new Project Phoenix Team Leader, a yellow em named Thomas Lee, and his young staff.

I listened for more than an hour. Their progress startled me.

Although I should have been habituated to rapid research. As explicated in my prospectus to the Chief Director on the Department of Creative Science, I had stated that the accelerating rate of scientific discovery was mainly due to four factors:

1.    The increasing use of computer technology, especially for automatic chemo- and physioanalysis.

2.    The increasing early conditioning of the young. By oxygenation of the fetus and a hyperprotein diet for selected infants, the US was producing what a French astrophysicist had called (sorrowfully, I thought) a “generation of genii.”

3.    The easy availability of human objects for research. This element alone contributed immeasurably to public health and happiness.

4.    The exponential factor involved: discoveries leading to discoveries, a geometric progression of scientific knowledge. Our conditioning techniques and development of brain-expanding and memory drugs were hard-pressed to embrace the complexity of today’s science. It had become a race, as the obso writer H. G. Wells said, between education and catastrophe.

So I tried not to appear too startled by the progress of the Project Phoenix Team. I listened to their triumphs and their defeats. Nodded. Made a few pertinent suggestions. Then we adjourned to their operating theater to observe an object currently under usage. I did not inquire about the volunteer’s antecedents. It would have been infratooty.

She was a young ef. About fourteen, judging from her pubescent breasts and scrabbly pubic hair. She was tightly strapped, naked, into a mechanism roughly resembling a barber’s chair. Taped with electronic sensors; IV feeding that included a mild hallucinogen. Atop her head, descending to her eyebrows, was an enormous stainless steel helmet from which radiated the spokes of the soft laser transmitters and receivers, on swivel attachments.

The operating theater was a jumble of hardware. Many primary readout screens: one for each laser scan. Computers to monitor the object’s vital signals. A transmitter to the Golem computer in a sublevel. Readout and printout machines for computer retrieval. And, touchingly, a pink bedpan.

We watched, quiet, while technicians made minute adjustments of the last rods.

“Sending,” someone said. Watching an EEG transmitter screen.

Machines went into action. The sounds were a symphony.
Ka-tah, ka-tah, ka-tah. Chingchingchingching. Beep-o, beep-o, beep-
o.
And underneath all, a deep, disturbing hum. We looked to the Golem computer readout screen.