"This is interesting. . . ." Corrigan's face took on a faraway look for a moment. "Kind of ironic."
Maguire looked at the others uncertainly. "What is he talking about?"
"The work that we're doing back at CLC right now," Evelyn answered. "On the face of it, it sounds as if it might be an answer to just the kind of problem you're talking about."
"Is that so?" Dermot said.
"In that case, you should stop messing around among those Americans, trying to act as if you were a millionaire or a celebrity or something, and get yourself back over here and help out," Maguire told Corrigan—but he wasn't being serious.
"No chance," Dermot declared. "He's been too seduced by now by thoughts of money and promotion in those big corporations over there."
Maguire snorted. "Well, don't let yourself be carried away by it all," he said to Corrigan. "Remember that the higher a monkey climbs, the more of an arse it looks."
Corrigan grinned. "Okay. But I will make sure you get all the information we can let you have that might help," he offered.
"That would be something we'd appreciate," Maguire said.
* * *
For lunch they drove down to the Cobh Hotel in the center of the town, which was where Corrigan and Evelyn were staying. Ballygarven was a small boating resort grown from a fishing village that stood at the head of an inlet where the sea twisted its way among rocky headlands and shingle beaches. Behind the town, heather-covered slopes and marshlands rose toward a ridge of granite-topped summits a mile or two away. Evelyn was doubly glad that she and Corrigan had decided to make this trip to the west of Ireland before they left. It was just as she had pictured, ever since Dermot began describing it soon after their arrival.
Food was served in the bar, which though modernized had not lost its old-world feel. Maguire steered Evelyn and Dermot to one side where there stood a table for hot food and another for salads, recommending the mussels and the lamb. Meanwhile, Corrigan went to the bar to take care of the drinks. He and Evelyn had checked in the evening before, and he already knew Rooney, the bartender. Several of the locals were in, taking a midday refreshment.
"Oh, the American's back, I see," Rooney said, taunting Corrigan good-humoredly. "Coca-Cola, is it? Or do I have to start mixin' some o' them fancy cocktails for ye?"
"Three pints, and enough of your lip, Rooney. And a glass of lager-and-lime for the lady, if you please."
"Are ye's back to see some decent scenery? Sure, don't the mountains way up above look green and fresh in the sunshine this mornin', after the rain?"
Corrigan looked pained. "What mountains are you talking about, Rooney? You don't call those humps out there mountains, do you? I'll tell you, we were in the Sierra Nevada in California just before the holidays, and there's real mountains for you. They've got one cliff called El Capitan, in the Yosemite Valley, that goes practically a mile straight up."
"Is that a fact?" Rooney said, putting a glass under one of the pumps. "And what would be the use of things as big as that to anyone at all? Our Irish mountains have got a top and a bottom to them, and that's all that matters. Why waste so much on all that useless middle? If you stand a little bit nearer they look the same anyway. But you don't have to spend half your life getting up, and then back down again." Rooney looked at the regulars in appeal. "Isn't that right, now?"
"It's fine by me," one of them agreed. "I'd never be seen dead on the top of either one of them anyway."
"You see, I was right. It's after turning into a Yank, you are. Everything has to be biggest, and that's all that matters. Never a thought for the quality of things."
"And when were you last there, Rooney?" Corrigan challenged.
"Oh, you'd be surprised if I told you, wouldn't you?"
"Go on, then. Surprise me."
Rooney set a foaming pint down on the countertop for the head to settle, and began pouring another. "Oh, I know all about the high life and such, as you might call it," he said airily. "I'm what you might call something of a self-unmade man."
"Oh? A self-unmade man, is it?" one of the locals said.
"And what might that be?" another asked.
"I started out, long ago in me dim and distant youth, as the president of a big corporation, making half a million dollars a year," Rooney said. "But would you believe, I needed every blessed penny of it. There was the yacht to take care of, the private jet plane, and the mortgage on the mansion. All them social clubs and country clubs and golfing clubs, with their dues. . . . And you wouldn't want to hear about the kind of wife I had to put up with, and her tastes."
"Would ye listen to the man?"
"Okay. And? . . ." Corrigan said, smiling.
Rooney went on, "But I worked hard and assiduously, and by the time I was twenty-five I'd come down to regional manager. Got rid of the house for something smaller, the car for something slower, the wife for someone saner, and I found I could manage on two hundred thousand a year. So I paid off the debts, kept at it, and I was down to a branch manager by thirty, ordinary salesman by thirty-four, and I quit the salaried professions altogether before I was forty."
"Now there's a success story for you," one of the regulars murmured approvingly.
"It's different. I'll give you that," his companion agreed.
Rooney nodded. "By then I didn't need a salary anymore. Today, I don't owe anybody anything, and this job pays me all I need. It's only four shifts a week, and I get plenty of time to read the books I always wanted to, sit in the sun when it suits me, and go fishing with the kids." He thought for a moment, then shrugged. "To tell you the truth, I probably don't need the money that much at all, for we've a small farm that could get us by. But I keep it for the people that you meet."
Evelyn and the others had come over and were listening. "Another philosopher," she said to Corrigan. "You know, Joe, this is the kind of place that Eric should be in."
"Who's Eric?" Maguire asked.
"A scientist that we know back at CLC," Corrigan said.
"He'd fit in here," Evelyn said. "You're his kind of people. You talk his values. Corporate politics isn't his scene."
Maguire nodded and pulled a face. "Well, if he ever decides he's had enough, tell him to get in touch. We'll talk to him, sure enough. We've got some good people here, including some from Europe, but we could always use more. . . . And that applies to you, too, Joe, don't forget. If you get tired of being among those neurotics over there, we'll find room for you."
Corrigan laughed and raised his pint. "I think I can handle whatever comes up, Brendan. But thanks anyway."
* * *
The next day, Dermot drove Corrigan and Evelyn south to Shannon, where they boarded an Aer Lingus jet for New York. It had been fun, and it had been interesting—the kind of break they had intended. And in another way, a lot that they had not intended. But now it was time to get back to the real world. They had a big surprise to tell everybody.
Chapter Twenty-three
Jonathan Wilbur was in the Galahad Lounge again, sitting at the bar. It was early yet, with a few people at the other barstools and a group from a company marketing conference that was being held at the Camelot that week occupying some tables on the far side.
"How are things working out with Oliver?" Corrigan inquired casually.
"Oh, okay," Wilbur replied neutrally, and returned to playing with his portable electronic office. Corrigan sauntered back to the other end of the bar and checked the pressure in the dispenser. Wilbur looked up at him oddly from time to time but said nothing. Corrigan got the feeling that his behavior of late had been puzzling the system.
In the commercial showing on the TV, the couple who had arrived for dinner were healthily image-conscious, he in a satin-edged cloak and wearing a wig of constantly color-changing optical fibers, she in a Psi-Woman meditation jumpsuit, complete with requisite combination shoulder-purse and music/mantra player.
"Wasn't she the clairvoyant in that movie about the surgeon who put his wife's lover'
s brain inside the gorilla after they had the car crash?" a fat woman in a pink sombrero, sitting on another stool, asked the man with her while she stared absently at the screen and pushed pretzels into her mouth.
"Yeah. She showed the detective where the body was." The man was wearing a short, embroidered cloak and matador's black hat. It was South of the Border week. Anyone in Mexican garb got a ten-percent discount in most places.
On the screen, the two guests were sipping before-dinner cocktails. Suddenly the woman nudged her husband and pointed to a faint finger-smudge on her glass. "Body grease!" she whispered behind her hand. The husband hurriedly put down his own glass, at the same time glancing apprehensively from side to side at the cutlery and the china. Moments later, the scene ended with a shot of the couple departing on a pretext, and then the embarrassed host consoling his distraught wife.
"She can really do it," the woman in the sombrero said.
"Huh?" her companion said.
"In real life—she's really psychic."
"Oh."
"The police use her. A documentary last week had her in it, so it must be true." The woman looked at Corrigan for support. "She can find missing stuff by looking at pictures that they take from choppers over the city."
"That's nice," Corrigan said.
While on the TV, the hostess's wise and worldly mother was educating her daughter in the use of "Bodysafe." After spraying fingertips and palms, they embarked on a tour of the house together, rapturously drenching drawer handles, doorknobs, light switches, phone buttons, toilet seats, and anything else carrying the risk of indirect contact with another human being. The ad ended with the husband and wife again, this time waving goodbye to their guests after a brilliantly successful dinner party, and then flinging their arms around each other ecstatically—presumably after taking appropriate precautions with Bodysafe.
"You know, Joe, I think you've been holding out on me," Wilbur said at last.
Corrigan ambled back to that end of the bar. "Oh? Why would that be, now?"
"I think you saw some things coming that I didn't see, and you didn't tell me."
"Is that a fact?"
"About Oliver," Wilbur said. So, apparently, things weren't going so well. "What makes people so greedy? I mean, not only in business, but all these people that we read about. How do they get like it?"
"People will continue trying to get better at whatever others continue to admire," Corrigan answered.
"Aren't there any people of principle out there anymore?" Wilbur grumbled.
"Probably. But who's interested in principles? What gets you elected is where you stand on issues. And that's a shame, because issues change but principles don't. When you know a man's character, you know where he'll stand on any issue."
Already, as a now-cognizant observer inside the experiment, Corrigan was gaining some invaluable insights on how the system was evolving. This was the way they should have done it from the beginning—with the surrogates fully aware of what was going on. It was what he himself had always advocated in the endless debates on the subject. He didn't know how the decision had come about to go ahead with it—once it was decided upon, keeping the fact secret from the surrogates would be essential. The idea of it had been to guarantee that the surrogates' behavior would be as authentic as possible. But now he was surer than ever that it had been the wrong way to go. Knowing what was going on, he could steer the system into grappling with concepts of real substance for a change, and hence into showing the beginnings of emulating real, thinking beings—which had been the whole idea. Left to freewheel in its own direction for years, it had been industriously populating its world with morons.
Wilbur propped his chin on a hand and stared across the bar exasperatedly. "Joe, why are you a bartender?"
"To get the money to pay the rent."
"No, I mean why don't you run for office or something?"
"I don't have the necessary lack of qualifications." Corrigan gestured to indicate the far side of the lounge. A manager from the Krunchy Kandy Corporation, which was the company staging its marketing conference at the hotel that week, was leading a mixed group of employees, all dressed similarly to himself in the pink-and-gold tunic and red frilled cap of the Krunchy Kitten, through a rendering in unison of the company's new TV jingle. "Anyway, who on earth would vote for me?"
The phone behind the bar rang. Corrigan picked it up. "Hello, Galahad Lounge. This is Joe."
"There's an outside call for you," the hotel operator's voice said.
"Thanks."
"Go ahead, caller."
"Joe Corrigan here."
"Ah, hello, Mr. Corrigan," a firm, genial voice—but at the same time, one carrying an unmistakable undertone of curiosity—replied. "This is Dr. Zehl speaking. I got a message saying that you wanted to get in touch with me."
The announcement came so unexpectedly that it took Corrigan several seconds to collect his thoughts. "Where are you calling from?" he asked.
"Does it make any difference?" Zehl—whoever he really was—had to be neurally coupled into the system again. If he were speaking via a direct channel from the outside, the mismatch in time rates would have made communication impossible.
The bar was an awkward place to have to take the call, but nobody was paying Corrigan any attention. He kept his voice low and faced away from the room, into a corner.
"Are we on monitor bypass?"
"Yes." The question would have confirmed what Zehl suspected—that Corrigan knew the situation. Zehl's reply meant that although the conversation was being handled by the system, its content was not being made available to the context analyzers. In other words, the line was not being tapped.
"So you know the score," Corrigan said. "Okay, I know what it's all about. Oz is running. We're still in it. You're one of the outside controllers."
"I see." Zehl's tone was wary, waiting to see what line Corrigan would take.
"Has anyone else in here figured it?" Corrigan asked.
"You're the first that we know of, so far."
"It's gone way past anything that was planned. I don't know how it got to be taken this far, but the results are amazing."
There was a pause, as if this was not the kind of reaction that Zehl had been expecting. "You're . . . satisfied, then?" he said finally.
"Yes, for the most part," Corrigan replied. "The memory-suppression took some figuring out at first, but I'm better off without it."
"How do you mean?"
"It works better this way. I can do a lot more on the inside, now that I know what's what. We should have set it up this way to begin with."
"Okay." There was an edge of relief in Zehl's voice. "So it seems to be working out."
"There might be a problem. One of the other surrogates has cottoned on to what's happening too. The trouble is, she doesn't know so much of the background, and she was pretty mad about the whole situation when I talked to her. I'm worried about what she might do."
"Why not talk to her? Tell her whatever she needs to know. It can't make a lot of difference now."
"That's what I want to do. The trouble is, I can't locate her. What I need you people out there to do for me is . . ." Corrigan's voice trailed off as he caught sight of the tall, dark-haired figure in a long coat, just coming into the lounge. He nodded a quick acknowledgement as he caught her eye, and turned his face back to the phone. "It's okay. You don't have to bother. I'll call you back later. Guess what. She just walked in the door."
Chapter Twenty-four
"I understand that congratulations are in order," Jason Pinder said from behind the desk in his office in the Executive Building. It was a meticulously neat office, with everything arranged logically and every need anticipated. "You never cease to surprise us, Joe. Well, give my best wishes to Ms. Vance. . . . No, that's wrong, isn't it. It's Ms. Corrigan now. Anyway, I hope you'll both have a fine future."
"Thanks," Corrigan said from the chair opposite. It was his first morning back. The sum
mons to Pinder's office had come minutes after he appeared in the lab. Corrigan didn't believe it was just so that Pinder could be the first to offer his best wishes.
Pinder stroked his mustache with a knuckle and regarded Corrigan pensively for a moment before continuing. "I wouldn't want to spoil the romance of a time like this, but your going off without a word like that made it impossible for us to let you know what was happening. Nobody knew where you were."
Corrigan was far from sure that anyone from management had been trying to find out. Certainly, Corrigan's secretary, Judy Klein, had said nothing about being asked in the few minutes that Corrigan had had to talk with her before being called over to see Pinder. He knew that Shipley had been trying to get in touch with him before he and Evelyn left California for Ireland, but that was a different matter. Since Shipley was not expected in until the afternoon, Corrigan still didn't know what that had been about.
Pinder went on. "As you know, the whole DNC program has been the subject of top-level discussions in the company for some time now. While you were away, I was notified of certain decisions that have been made concerning revisions to our goals, and the organizational adjustments that will be needed to accomplish them."
Only then did the premonition hit Corrigan that a pie was about to hit him in the face. In the same instant, the certainty crystallized that this wasn't something that had suddenly happened in the last few weeks. He waited, saying nothing. Pinder continued:
"The change that will have the most impact as far as you're concerned, Joe, has to do with our reviews of the state of the art and the future developments that now seem likely in various fields. To put it bluntly, VIV technology is obsolete—or at least, on its way toward very soon becoming so. EVIE really can't be justified any longer as the company's main VR line. Going through the primary sensory system for vision and acoustics is a dead end. All the market indicators are for taking everything over to direct neural sooner rather than later." He showed his palms, then sat back, watching Corrigan with his marbly gray eyes to await his reaction.
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