Three for Tomorrow, page 11
I keep up on things like TC-6. This one, I knew, left you rational, unable to lie and somewhat literal-minded. I figured on making the most of its weak points by flowing with the current. Also, I had a final trick remaining.
The thing that I disliked most about TC-6 was that it sometimes had a bad side effect, cardiac-wise.
I did not exactly feel myself going under. I was just suddenly there, and it did not feel that different from the way I always feel. I knew this to be an illusion. I wished I had had prior access to the antidote kit I kept within a standard-looking first-aid kit hidden in my dresser.
"You hear me, don't you?" he asked.
"Yes," I heard myself saying.
"What is your name?"
"Albert Schweitzer," I replied.
There were a couple quick breaths taken behind me, and my questioner silenced the other fellow, who had started to say something.
Then, "What do you do?" he asked me.
"I'm a technician."
"I know that much. What else?"
"I do many things. I do not understand—"
"Do you work for the government—any government?"
"I pay taxes, which means I work for the government, part of the time. Yes."
"I did not mean it in that sense. Are you a secret agent in the employ of any government?"
"No."
"A known agent?"
"No."
"Then why are you here?"
"I am a technician. I service the machines."
"What else?"
"I do not—"
"What else? Who else do you work for, besides the Project?"
"Myself."
"What do you mean?"
"My activities are directed to maintaining my personal economic status and physical well-being."
"I am talking about other employers. Have you any?"
"No."
From the other man, I heard, "He sounds clean."
"Maybe." Then, to me, "What would you do if you met me somewhere and recognized me?"
"Bring you to law."
"…And failing that?"
"If I were able, I would hurt you severely. Perhaps I would kill you, if I were able to give it the appearance of self-defense or make it seem to be an accident."
"Why?"
"Because I wish to preserve my own physical well-being. The fact that you have disturbed it once means that you might attempt it again. I will not permit this access to me."
"I doubt that I will attempt it again."
"Your doubts mean nothing to me."
"So you saved two lives today, yet you are willing to take one."
I did not reply.
"Answer me."
"You did not ask me a question."
"Could he have drug-consciousness?" asked the other.
"I never thought of that. Do you?"
"I do not understand the question."
"This drug allows you to remain oriented in all three spheres. You know who you are, where you are, and when you are. It saps that thing called the will, however, which is why you must answer my questions. A person with a lot of experience with truth drugs can sometimes beat them, by rephrasing the questions to himself and giving a literally honest reply. Is this what you are doing?"
"That's the wrong question," said the other.
"What's right?"
"Have you had any prior experience with drugs?" that one asked me.
"Yes."
"What ones?"
"I've had aspirin, nicotine, caffeine, alcohol—"
"Truth serums," he said. "Things like this, things that make you talk. Have you had them before?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"At Northwestern University."
"Why?"
"I volunteered for a series of experiments."
"What did they involve?"
"The effects of drugs on consciousness."
"Mental reservations," he said to the other. "It could take days. I think he has primed himself."
"Can you beat a truth drug?" the other one asked me.
"I do not understand."
"Can you lie to us—now?"
"No."
"Wrong question, again," said the shorter. "He is not lying. Anything he says is literally true."
"So how do we get an answer out of him?"
"I'm not sure."
So they continued to hit me with questions. After a time, things began to wane.
"He's got us," said the shorter one. "It would take days to beat him down."
"Should we…?"
"No. We've got the tape. We've got his answers. Let's let a computer worry about it."
But by then it was near morning, and I had the funny feeling, accompanied by cold flashes on the back of my neck, that I might be able to manage a fib or three once again. There was some light on the other side of my portholes. They had been going at me for what seemed to be many hours. Perhaps six. I decided to try.
"I think this place is bugged," I said.
"What? What do you mean?"
"Ship's Security," I stated. "I believe all technicians are so monitored."
"Where is it?"
"I don't know."
"We've got to find it," said the one.
"What good will it do?" said the other, in a whisper, for which I respected him, as whispers do not often get recorded. "They'd have been here long before this, if it were."
"Unless they're waiting, letting us hang ourselves."
The first began looking, however, and I rose, met with no objections, and staggered across the room to collapse upon the bed.
My right hand slipped down around the headboard, as though by accident. It found the gun.
I flipped off the safety as I withdrew it. I sat upon the bed and pointed it at them.
"All right, morons," I said. "Now you answer my questions."
The big one made a move toward his belt and I shot him in the shoulder.
"Next?" I asked, tearing away the silencer, which had done its work, and replacing it with a pillow.
The other man raised his hands and looked at his buddy.
"Let him bleed," I said.
He nodded and stepped back.
"Sit down," I told them both.
They did.
I moved over behind the two of them.
"Give me that arm," and I took it. I cleaned it and dressed it, as the bullet had gone on through. I had placed their weapons on the dresser. I tore off their hankies and studied their faces. I did not know them from anywhere.
"Okay, why are you here?" I asked. "And why do you want to know what you want to know?"
There were no replies.
"I don't have as much time as you did," I said. "So I'm about to tape you in place. I don't think I can afford to fool around with drugs."
I fetched the adhesive tape from the medicine chest and did it. Then I chained the door.
"These places are pretty soundproof," I remarked, putting the gun aside, "and I lied about them being bugged.—So you can do a bit of screaming if you want. I caution you against it, however. Each one earns you one broken bone.
"So who do you work for?" I repeated.
"I'm a maintenance man on the shuttler," said the shorter one, "My friend is a pilot."
He received a dirty look for this.
"Okay," I said. "I'll buy that, because I've never seen you around here before. Think carefully over your answer to the next one: who do you really work for?"
I asked this knowing that they did not have the advantages that I had had. I work for myself because I am self-employed—an independent contractor. My name is Albert Schweitzer right now, so that's what it is, period. I always become the person I must. Had they asked me who I had been before, they might have gotten a different answer. It's a matter of conditioning and mental attitudes.
"Who pulls the strings?" I asked.
No replies.
"All right," I said. "I guess I'll have to ask you in a different fashion."
Heads turned toward me.
"You were willing to violate my physiology for the sake of a few answers," I said. "Okay. I guess I'll return the favor upon your anatomy. I'll get an answer or three, I promise. Only I'll be a little more basic about it. I'll simply torture you until you talk."
"You wouldn't do that," said the taller man. "You have a low violence index."
I chuckled, without mirth.
"Let's see," I said.
How do you go about ceasing to exist while continuing your existence? I found it quite easy. But then, I was in on the project from the first, was trusted, had been given an option…
After I tore up my cards, I returned to work as usual. There, I sought and located the necessary input point.
It was Thule, way up where it's cold, a weather station…
An old guy who liked rum ran the place. I can still remember the day when I took my ship, the Proteus, into his harbor and complained of rough seas.
"I'll put you up," he said to me.
The computer had not let me down.
"Thanks."
He led me in, fed me, talked to me about the seas, the weather. I brought in a case of Bacardi and turned him loose on it.
"Ain't things pretty much automatic here?" I asked.
"That's right."
"Then what do they need you for?"
He laughed a little and said, "My uncle was a Senator. I needed a place to go. He fixed me up. Let's see your ship. So what if it's raining?"
So we did.
It was a decent-sized cabin cruiser with powerful engines—and way out of its territory.
"It's a bet," I told him. "I wanted to hit the Arctic Circle and get proof that I did."
"Kid, you're nuts."
"I know, but I'll win."
"Prob'ly," he agreed. "I was like you once—all full of the necessary ingredients and ready to go. —Gettin' much action these days?" And he stroked his pepper-and-salt beard and gave me an evil grin from inside it.
"Enough," I said, and, "Have a drink," because he had made me think of Eva.
He did, and I left it at, "Enough," for a time. She was not like that, though. I mean, it was not something he would really want to hear about.
It had been about four months earlier that we had broken up. It was not religion or politics; it was much more basic.
So I lied to him about an imaginary girl and made him happy.
I had met her in New York, back when I was doing the same things she was—vacationing and seeing plays and pix.
She was a tall girl, with close-cropped blond hair. I helped her find a subway station, got on with her, got off with her, asked her to dinner, was told to go to hell.
Scene:
"I'm not like that."
"Neither am I. But I'm hungry. So will you?"
"What are you looking for?"
"Someone to talk to," I said. "I'm lonesome."
"I think you're looking in the wrong place."
"Probably."
"I don't know you from anywhere."
"That makes two of us, but I could sure use some spaghetti with meat sauce and a glass of Chianti."
"Will you be hard to get rid of?"
"No. I go quietly."
"Okay. I'll eat spaghetti with you."
And we did.
That month we kept getting closer and closer until we were there. The fact that she lived in one of those crazy little bubble cities under the sea meant nothing. I was liberal enough to appreciate the fact that the Sierra Club had known what it was doing in pushing for their construction.
I probably should have gone along with her when she went back. She had asked me.
She had been on vacation—seeing the Big Place—and so had I. I didn't get into New York that often.
"Marry me," though, I'd said.
But she would not give up her bubble and I would not give up my dream. I wanted the big, above-the-waves world—all of it—and I had just about figured it by then, except for the Christmas cards. They came later. I loved that blue-eyed bitch from five hundred fathoms, though, and I realize now that I probably should have taken her on her own terms. I'm too damned independent, though. If either of us had been normal … Well, we weren't, and that's that.
Eva, wherever you are, I'll never talk that way about you. I hope you and Jim are happy.
"Yeah—with Coke," I said. "It's good that way," and I drank Cokes and he drank doubles with Cokes until he announced his weariness.
"It's starting to get to me, Mister Hemingway," he said.
"Well, let's sack out."
"Okay. You can have the couch there."
"Great."
"I showed you where the blankets are?"
"Yes."
"Then good night, Ernie. See you in the morning."
"You bet, Bill. I'll make breakfast for us."
"Thanks."
And he yawned and stretched and went away.
I gave him half an hour and went to work.
His weather station had a direct line into the central computer. I was able to provide for a nice little cut-in. Actuated by short wave. Little-used band. I concealed my tamperings well.
When I was finished, I knew that I had it made.
I could tell Central anything through that thing, from hundreds of miles away, and it would take it as fact.
I was damn near a god.
Eva, maybe I should have gone the other way. Probably. I'll never know.
I helped Bill Mellings over his hangover the following morning, and he didn't suspect a thing. He was a very decent old guy, and I was comforted by the fact that he would never get into trouble over what I had done. This was because nobody would ever catch me, I was sure. And even if they do, I don't think he'll get into trouble. After all, his uncle is a retired Senator.
I had the ability to make it as anybody I cared to. I'd have to whip up the entire past history—birth, name, academics and et cet—and I could then fit myself in anywhere I wanted in modern society. All I had to do was tell Central via the weather station via short wave. The record would be created and I would have existence in any incarnation I desired. Ab initio, like.
But Eva, I wanted you. I'm sorry it never was. Well …
I think the government does occasionally play the same tricks. But I am positive they don't suspect the existence of an independent contractor.
I know most of that which is worth knowing—more than is necessary, in fact—with respect to lie detectors and truth serums. I hold my name sacred. Nobody gets it. Do you know that the Keeler polygraph can be beaten in no fewer than seventeen different ways? It has not been improved since the mid-twentieth century. A lower-chest strap plus some fingertip perspiration detectors could do it wonders. But things like this never get the appropriations. Maybe a few universities play around with it from this standpoint—but that's about it. I could design one today that damn near nobody could beat, but its record still wouldn't be worth much in court. Drugs, now, they're another matter.
A pathological liar can beat Amytal and Pentothal. So can a drug-conscious guy.
What is drug-consciousness?
Ever go looking for a job and get an intelligence test or an aptitude test or a personality inventory for your pains? Sure. Everybody has by now. (They're all on file in Central, by the way.) You get used to taking them after a time. They start you in early, and throughout your life you learn about taking the goddamn things. You get to be what psychologists refer to as "test-conscious." What it means is that you get so damned used to them that you know what kind of asininity is right, according to the book.
So okay. You learn to give them the answers they're looking for. You learn all the little time-saving tricks. You feel secure, you know it is a game and you are game-conscious.
It's the same thing.
If you do not get scared, and if you have tried a few drugs before for this express purpose, you can beat them.
Drug-consciousness is nothing more than knowing how to handle yourself under that particular kind of fire.
"Go to hell. You answer my questions," I said.
I think that the old tried-and-true method of getting answers is the best: pain, threatened and actual.
I used it.
I got up early in the morning and made breakfast. I took him a glass of orange juice and shook him by the shoulder.
"What the goddamn—!"
"Breakfast," I said. "Drink this."
He did, and then we went out to the kitchen and ate.
"The sea looks pretty good today," I said. "I guess I can be moving on."
He nodded above his eggs.
"You ever up this way, you stop in again. Hear?"
"I will," I said, and I have—several times since—because I came to like him. It was funny.
We talked all that morning, going through three pots of coffee. He was an M.D. who had once had a fairly large practice going for him. (At a later date, he dug a few bullets out of me and kept quiet about their having been there.) He had also been one of the early astronauts. Now, he said, he just wanted to be a dirty old man. I learned subsequently that his wife had died of cancer some six years earlier. He gave up his practice at that time, and he had never remarried. He had looked for a way to retire from the world, found one, did it.
Though we are very close friends now, I have never told him that he's harboring a bastard input unit. I may, one day, as I know he is one of the few guys I can trust. On the other hand, I do not want to make him a genuine accomplice to what I do. Why trouble your friends and make them morally liable for your strange doings?
So I became the man who did not exist. But I had acquired the potential for becoming anybody I chose. All I had to do was write the program and feed it to Central via that station. All I needed then was a means of living. This latter was a bit tricky.
I wanted an occupation where payment would always be made to me in cash. Also, I wanted one where payment would be large enough for me to live as I desired; i.e., nicely.
This narrowed the field considerably and threw out lots of legitimate things. I could provide myself with a conventional-seeming background in any area that amused me, and work as an employee there. Why should I, though?
